It was before the church had shaken off
the intolerable yokes of Erastian supremacy and patronages; before she
had ecclesiastically asserted, and practically maintained, her spiritual
and scriptural claim of right, namely, the divine right of presbytery,
and intrinsic power of the church, the two special gems of Christ's
crown, as King on his holy hill of Zion; before the explanation of the
national covenant, as condemning episcopacy, the five articles of
_Perth_, the civil power of churchmen; before the Solemn League and
Covenant was entered into; before the _Westminster_ Confession of Faith,
the Catechisms, larger and shorter, the Directory for worship, Form of
Presbyterian church government and ordination of ministers, were
composed; and before the acts of church and state, for purging
judicatories, ecclesiastical and civil, and armies from persons
disaffected to the cause and work of God, were made; and all these
valuable pieces of reformation ratified with the full and ample sanction
of the supreme civil authority, by the king's majesty and honorable
estates of parliament, as parts of the covenanted uniformity in
religion, betwixt the churches of Christ in _Scotland, England_ and
_Ireland_.
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